GREAT shot!

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Thanks for the compliment.  A compliment a day keeps the doctor away.

My dad was quite a photographer too.  He ran several portfolios for the
Photographic Society of America.  Started several camera clubs in his
life ... one of them is still very active in Lancaster.  He loved it when
a new member wanted him to teach her (they were mostly women)
photographic techniques.  It gave his ego a good shot.

Put it on the web, Matt?  I'm 60 years old and I have a love for older
technologies.  The older systems allowed much higher quality
reproductions.  (Look at The Age of Steam by Beebe and Clegg that was
printed by rotogravure process.)  Although I, for example, recognize that
Polaroid picture-in-a-minute technology has great advantages for proofing
the picture before exposing a "true" sheet of film, for real estate
pictures (before digital cameras), for making charts for projection (they
used to have a great line copy film), for taking pictures of children on
Santa's lap, I never developed a fondness for that technology.  It just
didn't have the quality.  I feel the same way about very low resolution
digital prints on the web.  It is very unlikely, therefore, that I would
consider using the WWW as a method of displaying my pictures.

I've spent most of my life working in medium and large format because
very sharp images can be produced.   My training was on a 3 1/4 x 4 1/4
and also a a 4x5 Speed Graphic.   I still shoot about 100 to 200 sheets
of 4x5 film a year, mostly making continuous tone copy negatives from
prints or black and white internegatives from slides.  Even though I did
shell out for a 4x5 view camera (separate from the copy camera), most of
my field work since 1957 has involved medium format 2 1/4 x 2 1/4
cameras, starting with a Minolta Autocord, and including three Mamiya
reflex cameras, a Rollei, a Yashica, and my dad's Hassalblad.  These are
not lightweight beasts and I carried them for many a mile.  Most of the
Pittsburgh pictures that have drawn remarks from this group involved a
lot of stomping around.  It wasn't unusual for me to start out of East
Pittsburgh in the morning on foot and be in Aspinwall in the late
afternoon, or from Carnegie in the morning to McKees Rocks in the mid
afternoon to dawntawn several hours later.  I've hoofed every inch of the
Library and Drake lines, much of it two or three times.  I walked every
inch of the Shaker Rapid at least once, several trips on the P&W, one one
over the entire length of the Newark City Subway (ask Bruce Bente about
the hike through the tunnel).  When I quit walking and started driving,
the quality went down.  I was crazier and less timid then, and the cities
were nicer.  Simply put, I worked for those pictures.  I think I worked
every bit as hard as Dick Steinheimer, Phil Hastings, Bill Middleton, and
others did.

I apologize if I sound possessive of my camera work, but I'm the one who
put up with the snow storms, heat waves, rain, darkness, and cold.  And I
will be just as adamant about someone else's right to preserve control of
his or her images.  I always liked Ara Mesrobian's picture looking down
Pennsylvania Avenue SE from the Treasury on a summer evening (it's in
"Coast to Coast") ... knowing how hot, humid, and downright miserable
Washington can be, I thought it was great that he braved it to take the
picture and even nicer that he allowed me to publish it.

A number of my own images have been displayed as 11x14s or 16x20s at the
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in the last three exhibits ... I certainly
like to present the public with that sort of quality image.  I'm no
different than anyone else in that respect.  It really helps the ego to
stand back and watch the museum visitors study the pictures.  And, as
long as there is still a market for books, I appreciate that avenue.
Also, no one will every recover anywhere near total costs from the
hobby.  It just isn't in the cards.  But if WQED offers me $100 for
rights to one picture for a TV show, why should I put it on the Internet
for nothing?

Am I totally down on computer technology?  No.  In fact I would like to
work into colorizing old pictures on the computer to produce acceptable
display prints.

And I keep thinking I might make a little money in retirement by selling
sets of prints at shows.  What is stopping me is the knowledge that some
of them will end up just where I don't want them.
And example ... I was selling prints at a show from the Frank Goldsmith
negatives which I bought.  I put a rubber stamp on the back which
credited Frank and my collection.  One of the purchasers was very
indignant ... didn't want the stamp on it ... he told me it was now his
to do as he pleased.  The language was just a hair short of "go take a
flying leap if you think you can control what I do with the print."

Oh yes, maybe the introduction I received to Arthur Ritis also helped to
make me possessive.  I can no longer comfortably carry two Nikons, a
Mamiya, a light meter, a dozen filters, four to six extra lenses for the
Nikons and two for the Mamiya, and 50 rolls of film plus the suitcases on
to a USAir flight to London or Frankfurt like I once did.  Last February
I went to England for a week and only toted one Nikon, four lenses, and
10 rolls of film.  The aging process sucks!

HAVE WE BEAT THIS SUBJECT TO DEATH YET?


mrb190 wrote:

> Fred,
>
> Sounds like you have a decent collection of Pgh Railways photos.  Any
> chance you'll be placing some on a website?
>
> Matt
>
> "Fred W. Schneider III" wrote:
>
> > I THOUGHT SO WHEN I TOOK IT!
> >
> > mrb190 wrote:
> >
> > > http://davesrailpix.railfan.net/pitts/htm/jfp086.htm
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